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SYNOPSIS In Swaziland policies to alleviate fuelwood shortages have been low on the list of development priorities, as much of the land has extensive bush and tree cover. There are, however, major social and geographical imbalances in biomass resource supply—some areas of Swazi Nation Land are barren due to increasing population pressure and the subsequent demand for fuelwood. This paper will show, in detail, the methodology for the survey which was carried out in Swaziland to investigate the importance of accessibility in linking potential supply to demand. Physical location, land tenure and management practices are generally recognised as important factors to take into consideration when converting potential resources into realistic amounts of fuelwood supply. Guesswork, however, is often used to estimate the impacts of these factors on biomass supplies. A nation-wide study was made in order to obtain more information on the accessibility of resources on privately owned land; results of a household surv...

Abstract In this paper, we discuss a number of ways to define and measure the affordability of energy consumption, and we examine the emergence of energy poverty in Italy in the period from 1998 to 2011. The paper examines the eligibility criteria for claiming the benefits available to support energy consumption for vulnerable families and it identifies the potential beneficiaries. The study assesses the appropriateness of the eligibility criteria by comparing the population targeted by the policy with the population actually facing affordability problems. A simulation exercise, using the hypothetical scenario most likely to result in energy benefits being made available, shows that, regardless of the affordability index adopted, the provision of state energy benefits has little impact on fuel poverty.

AbstractMany developing countries are facing the difficulty of choosing between economic growth and energy conservation and emission reduction (ECER). China has strengthened the implementation of ECER by setting environmental accountability as the development goal of local governments, hoping to have better governance effects. To evaluate the actual intervention effect of this approach, this paper constructs panel data covering 46 countries from 1995 to 2014 and uses the difference-in-differences (DID) method and the composite control method to quantitatively analyse the policy effect. The results show that China can effectively curb energy consumption and carbon emission intensity per unit of GDP by adding ECER targets to the government’s five-year plan, which has significant effects on ECER. Furthermore, we use an intermediary mechanism to test and identify low-carbon alternatives and an ECER promotion mechanism for technological advancement. The conclusion shows that economic development is compatible with low carbon and energy consumption. Combined with China’s long-term goals for ECER, it can be considered that on the road to achieving carbon peaking and carbon neutrality in the future, the economy and tertiary industry should be rationally developed, the degree of urbanization should receive more attention, and the proportion of thermal power generation should be reduced.

A brisk building boom of hydropower mega-dams is underway from China to Brazil. Whether benefits of new dams will outweigh costs remains unresolved despite contentious debates. We investigate this question with the "outside view" or "reference class forecasting" based on literature on decision-making under uncertainty in psychology. We find overwhelming evidence that budgets are systematically biased below actual costs of large hydropower dams - excluding inflation, substantial debt servicing, environmental, and social costs. Using the largest and most reliable reference data of its kind and multilevel statistical techniques applied to large dams for the first time, we were successful in fitting parsimonious models to predict cost and schedule overruns. The outside view suggests that in most countries large hydropower dams will be too costly in absolute terms and take too long to build to deliver a positive risk-adjusted return unless suitable risk management measures outlined in this paper can be affordably provided. Policymakers, particularly in developing countries, are advised to prefer agile energy alternatives that can be built over shorter time horizons to energy megaprojects.

This paper investigates how social outcomes from urban transport projects typically play out by reflecting on multi-scale spatial changes induced by projects over time, and the extent to which such changes meet varied interests in project outcomes. We use a multi-methods case study approach using two exemplars, a metro project in London and Seoul, which established extensive public transport networks to support urban growth. Our study highlighted that urban transport network expansion does not always enhance life opportunities for all due to intermediate and cumulative impacts of spatial changes induced by projects. Immediate benefits such as enhanced accessibility were often undermined by long-term consequences of incremental spatial changes at local scales. This study also indicated that differential patterns of spatial changes around nodes between centre and periphery could be attributed to multiple negative impacts on people living in the most deprived areas. To enhance social outcomes, we suggest an integrated approach to urban transport and spatial development that focuses on scale and temporal dimensions of spatial transformation enacted by projects. In conclusion, achieving sustainable and equitable effects from urban transport infrastructure requires careful examination of broader societal consequences of long-term spatial changes and locational contexts, especially function and socio-economic conditions.

COVID-19 has changed the permeability of borders in transboundary environmental governance regimes. While borders have always been selectively permeable, the pandemic has reconfigured the nature of cross-border flows of people, natural resources, finances and technologies. This has altered the availability of spaces for enacting sustainability initiatives within and between countries. In Southeast Asia, national governments and businesses seeking to expedite economic recovery from the pandemic-induced recession have selectively re-opened borders by accelerating production and revitalizing agro-export growth. Widening regional inequities have also contributed to increased cross-border flows of illicit commodities, such as trafficked wildlife. At the same time, border restrictions under the exigencies of controlling the pandemic have led to a rolling back and scaling down of transboundary environmental agreements, regulations and programs, with important implications for environmental democracy, socio-ecological justice and sustainability. Drawing on evidence from Southeast Asia, the article assesses the policy challenges and opportunities posed by the shifting permeability of borders for organising and operationalising environmental activities at different scales of transboundary governance.

The present age is characterized by a very complex economic relationship among finance, technology, social needs, etc., which can be summarized in the word “sustainability.” The sustainable consumption and production policies represent the keys to realize sustainable development. But, the analysis of the carbon footprint data points out that the present economies are still carbon-consumption production. The reduction of greenhouse gasses emissions is based on a shift from fossil to renewable and bio-based industrial raw materials, with a related reorganization of the chains of the energy and manufacturing sectors. But, this requirement implies technological choices based on a sustainable measurement of their impacts on the ecological and economical contexts. So, social and economic requirements must also be taken into account by the decision-makers. Bioeconomy can represent a possible approach to deal with the requirements of the present time. But, new needs emerge in relation to sustainability. So, sustainable policies require new indicators, in order to consider the link among economics, technologies, and social well-being. In this paper, an irreversible thermodynamic approach is developed, in order to introduce a thermoeconomic indicator, based on thermodynamic optimization methods, but also on socioeconomic and ecological evaluations. The entropy production rate is introduced in relation to the CO2emission flows from human activities, and it is related to the income index, in order to consider the economic and social equity. This approach is of interest of the researchers in the field of econophysics, thermoeconomy, economics, and bioeconomy.